silent thunder

The process of awakening is far from pleasant and blissful for me most of the time. It's much more akin, usually, to bathing in paint thinner and having my assumed untruths and unconscious beliefs, systematically stripped and eaten away in the presence of authentic awareness, than it is to some blissful basking in the light of eternally present loving compassionate bliss... although that's there as well... hmm.

I used to have a wasp friend who would visit me every day at lunch for a time one summer. I had the habit to sit in the same place on the docks and enjoy a turkey sandwich every day. So this little bugger would come and land on my sandwich, walk around to a good vantage point and then saw off a chunk of the meat that lay outside the bread and fly off with it. She'd come back a few times each day and for many days in a row. I'm smiling broadly at the memory. Thanks. The news was the first step in my losing my ability to have broadcast television in my life. I realized it was not educating, enlightening, supporting my path, or seeking to aid me in any way. It seems little more than a system of profit on fear and misery. I don't like to hide my head in the sand though. I do seek out news, I'm just much more selective in what I'll peruse and for how long. Articles of the nature you posted are still very enticing, if harrowing. But almost universally, my reaction is still much like yours... I marvel that this is how these incredible talented and skilled people choose to practice their arts...

It is a great boon to not care what I say. I often don't care what I say either and frequently will tell myself to shut up in the middle of a long story. But not now evidently. I remain curious about your tone and your assumption of qualified judgment in the life of another? Even as you so potently expressed that my comments about your actions are immune from your concern, yet you clearly display that what Miffymog or Shad shares about their own experience that is incongruent with your own, somehow triggers your need 'to pierce through ignorance'. No one knows another's path... I don't know yours. My response is nothing but digital representations of letters on a screen, given cultural meanings through some vague communal agreement via the learning of language. The reason my words do not hold weight in your mind is because I am not a qualified observer in your life. These are the same reasons that your words hold no weight in Miffy or Shads... as you are unqualified as judge in theirs... the only reason I'm speaking at all here, is that I was engaged by your tone and belligerence. So I'm not at odds with your words, nor you, but the energy you focused and sent with intent, via your projections of being a qualified judge. It is a fine thing to offer your countering view to someone in the hopes of benefiting them when you have insight. But to claim ownership of their truth and degrade them for theirs... well then I seek to pierce as well.

Mechanical time has always seemed like a thin veneer smeared over the surface of my perception of what actual time or relative change may be, if such a thing exists... so I've always dismissed mechanical time as illusory in the extreme. But this persistent experience of the present moment and how long that moment may be and how I relate to it as I observe change in my surroundings and my 'self', has sprouted and taken root for the last how many moments of my life? (five cycles around the sun at least) I guess it depends how I define a moment, or how much I agree with how others and my culture tell me to define it. In sidereal time we can measure a cycle of ~26,000 years, or rather the Aztecs appear to have been able to and our descendants could should they be inclined, we will only record that which we observe, if we're even inclined. Yet there is this sense of time passage, though it's not linear. Some events of my childhood remain seemingly as clear as if they happened yesterday, while I couldn't tell you what I did on April 18th without the aid of a journal. Several of my most intense dream experiences are more vivid to me than my wedding day and my recall of them in the 'now' is as potent as when I experienced them in the present moment all those years ago... It seems to me that memory is tied to how we define time. Mechanical time was a natural progression of this desire once the Cartesian Mechanistic Model took such firm hold of our imaginations. But it's weak and fallible and relative and points up the very fluid nature of time as proven by Einstein. If you've ever been in a stunning accident, or practiced meditation or martial arts to a deep point, or fallen in love in a moment, then you've likely experienced the subjective nature of time... time slowing way down. Samadhi even more intensely gave the very palpable sense of time being rendered irrelevant, or non-existent. So how long is a moment? and where does a moment end? where can we, with any confidence lay a stake and claim that here is one moment and it is separate from the next? or the previous? I recall when reaching for the tea one morning having the crystal clear instantaneous realization of the line of unbroken causal actions that occurred between the moment my mum and dad came together and I was planted in the womb, to me reaching for that cup. It then extrapolated in another heartbeat to the origins of our perceptual universe and whatever that may have been. But where can I draw a line that says, this is one moment and that... another? Any longer to me, it's just one great soup. All connected... and that is rather terrifying and comforting simultaneously. which is just more dualism... and oh look... it's time to sit again

Wow, so much scary in just a few lines... The biohybrid article is stunning in a bad way, the ramifications are ugly and your take on it was similar to my own... "so that is what those folks want to do with their skill and resources... huh." I've been away from tv so long, I couldn't even abide the cadence of the newscaster relating the 'good' butterfly story. Any news I get these days has to come by print and that in small doses and multiple sources. The voices and the trained, hypnotic, big breasted, plaster haired, delivery system of television broadcast news is anathema to me at this time.

same could be said of you... Your words and experiences may hold true for you sir, or miss... but your projections of them are unwarranted and borderline abusive.

hmm. I like that. The energy of human awareness. while qi rolls off the tongue easier in conversation and is a fine word to describe that process... I like your attention to the perspective of what it 'is' vs just the idea of it. I've always appreciated the Greek language for it's use of different words for nouns, one for the idea of the object when just discussing it... and another word was used, if you were holding the 'physical' object in your hands. edit to add: though I'm not sure why you hold, seemingly, the assumption that the 'Taoist paradigm's' concept of qi is some 'abstraction'. It's never held that flavor to me.

My first answer was a wee bit abrupt for such a genuine question. The reason I said it was not a choice is based on my reaction to the teaching. When I encountered my first cultivation teacher whom I instantly connected with on a profound level, it felt like waking up after a long sleep and I was absolutely going to return again and again... that's why I say it wasn't a choice. It was compulsion, I simply, authentically and deeply wanted to participate all the time as often as possible. In my youth I also wanted to be able to kick ass. Now I want life as simple as possible and my focus is health and balance of emotional force. I have no desire for powers. They seem to complicate things. My teacher's abilities whenever they have shared them, seem to me, to cause their lives to be fill quickly with all sorts of what I, in my lazy natural state, consider to be major sources of pain in the ass distraction, rather than a benefit. Wow! That's amazing! Teach me! I want that! Can you heal my ________? I lost my _________ can you tell me where it is? My ____ is swollen can you fix it? I should note, my teachers were men of a stature I can't come close to emulating. Their level of compassion and desire to help and serve far surpass my own and so the subsequent attention garnered by their show of powers is a blessing for them, in they have massive opportunity to benefit the lives of others. Although, I have noticed that for all that, neither of them stay in any one place for extended periods of time... they tend to be moving targets... perhaps that's their balance. (shrug) All I know is that this way of life was one I fell into like gravity, or love. I never sought it, just recognized how fortunate I was when I discovered myself mired hopefully within it. I am selfish and want to heal and have a long happy life with my friends and family. edited: grammar goblins... again

Sometimes definitely, but in that case, back then... last night. When I was presently in the past. That walk last night was gloriously soft and blissful and seemed much akin to softly, almost floatingly walking along the bottom of the ocean while all the glorious currents of light, wind and sound slid across my awareness like water made out of golden, yet non-visible light. There was a weightless quality to it, while still being firmly physical and rooted as my bare feet constantly shared their awareness of the texture and presence of the ground.

oh it is DEFINITELY time for ice cream!

To me, our bodies do seem to be a collective of trillions of individuals working within patterns that form said collective which gives the semblance of one thing defined as a human body, yet, is still a collective of many individual. I remember sitting and watching ants disassemble a bird corpse once and thinking. I am always touching something much smaller than myself and something much larger, simultaneously. I seem to be made of small things, while in turn am a small part of something much larger. Good stuff that garbage.

lucky bastard... we haven't had rain in over a hundred days.

thanks folks... that was fun i wonder what will come next... oh... more thoughts... as usual... hmm. maybe it's time to sit. nope evidently not I hope no one takes my words as my religion here... everything, including time and my self seems fluid to me, so my words were/are just so much mulling over and devil's advocate as I'm no staunch advocate of the eternal present, yet my sense of that remains and it is very compelling to me and stubbornly refuses to be dismissed over the last few years by my innate skepticism. So here I am sharing it with all you amazing fuckers and as usual, loving it. That concept of the eternal present moment as perceived as an epoch/era, is and was a compelling semantic argument of HH Dalai Lama that was recorded digitally. It was/is a simple offhand comment made in passing by HH to the cameraman who was filming him at that time, which started this ball rolling around my brain cage some years ago now. It took root and has returned again now, er um then when I typed it and then again now and well... I figured you folks would bring a wealth of non-expected perspective and I am not/was not/will not be let down it seems... Taomeow, your sharing based on the words of the seemingly long gone philosopher's assertion that there is no present at all, only past and future is and I expect will be for some time a real nut cracker... I will have fun chewing that bone on and off in my spare time. It seems the closest take to it in my own perception is how Joeblast described it. Seems compellingly real within a context of mental processes, except that it exhibits so much fragility in its fluid and relative nature to my own perception of it for me to adopt it as law. As with reality, perception and most things... it seems relative. aaah... now it is time to sit.

well as far as garbage goes, it's quite useful isn't it? repurposing and restructuring the cells and atoms of once useful items into other things that will again take on form and become useful again? even a pile of shit will help you grow a rose why heap on garbage for being what it is... after all, it's very difficult to be what you aren't

I was drawn to it, with a deep, instinctive, compelling pull.

hmm, it's time for a long walk

ay yai yai You children now love luxury. You have bad manners, contempt for authority; you show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. ~ Socrates

I recall either reading about her, or another young woman with similar abilities, I believe it was the book The Source Field Investigations. Read it some five years ago. In it, was the account of a man, who being given a high honor for services rendered, was invited to attend an event where he and a moderate size group of individuals met in an auditorium, where each were handed a rosebud. The young woman came on stage and over the period of several minutes, all of the rosebuds bloomed in the people's hands.

Freedom is a word, that represents an idea, based on a concept, which is an illusion.

Why let insults bother you... Most folks are not qualified observers in your life, thus their opinions are insipid and impotent, mere projections of their inner state, not yours. Judy Ford : your opinion of me is none of my concern

And so comes one of my favorite axioms courtesy of Mr Einstein: don't use the same thinking to attempt solving the problem that was used in creating it...

I guess you could blame the ones keeping the records... but 'g' seems to have a pretty long and shitty rap sheet in my estimation.